Eight Hundred And Eight of The Emerald Sea
by Rainstorm Amaya Arianrhod
Summary: There was a song, and it was about a war, and Gareth the Younger hated it. Written for the Fief Goldenlake Fairytales Challenge.


**A/N:** Written for the Fief Goldenlake Fairytale Challenge Month; based on the Scottish version of the old nursery rhyme 'How Many Miles to Babylon?', twisted, turned upside down and wrung through a Tortall mangle to make it appropriately Tortallan. It's a wonder the other mods let me get away with it, to be honest. **_Please read and review!_**

**Disclaimer:** Tamora Pierce owns Tortall, and I make no claim to her characters or setting; I'm just playing in her sandbox.

* * *

_King and Queen of Tortall-land_

_How many miles to Carthak's sands?_

_Eight hundred and eight of the Emerald Sea._

***

A small group of trainee Riders sat tucked out of the way against a stone wall, the defence of Pirate's Swoop in full swing around them. They wore arm- and finger-guards, and had sweated through the backs of their tunics, firing endless volleys of arrows in the heat of the day. Their hands and arms shook with the remembered strain.

"They're Carthaki," Padraig said softly, meaning the ships arrayed before the Swoop. "Carthaki war-barges. I heard Sarge say so."

"Say so, or shout so?" Farant enquired, collapsing inelegantly next to his fellow trainees.

"Say so. He also says this means we're at war with Carthak."

"No flags," Farant pointed out. "They could be working without imperial sanction?"

"Hah, yes, and that little lot crossed eight hundred miles of the Emerald Sea to say hello." Padraig sighed, and toyed with the fletching of one of his arrows.

Evin remained silent, rolling a piece of hay between his fingers. He remembered the rhymes his father and uncles used to make up, funny and political and sometimes quite rude, and felt a hint of something tugging at his mind. "Eight hundred and eight of the Emerald Sea..." he murmured.

***

_Will I get there by candle-light?_

_If your horse be good and your spurs be bright_

_You'll make nothing of the Emerald Sea._

***

"Trapped," Alanna said furiously, crumpling the parchment carrying the hard-won information in her hand like an autumn leaf, "trapped. They'll be nothing more than fish in a barrel!"

"If we ride hard we can be there before a candle burns down, Sir Alanna," Ulliver Linden assured her, examining a map with the hastily-marked positions of the besiegers scribbled on it and mentally calculating the best angle of attack. "The raiders won't be expecting us."

"That's not helpful, Linden!" Alanna snapped. "My children could be dead before any blasted candle burns down. They could be dead _now_. Ozorne will regret this!"

She stamped away, reaching for the few pieces of armour she'd removed during their quick respite.

"I thought the Carthakis weren't officially responsible, sir?"

The only answer he got was a slightly muffled "Hah!" from a lady knight halfway into her helm. He shrugged, tucked the map into his breastplate and took a deep breath, the better to bark orders at his men.

A fragment of something drifted across his mind, seeming to speak in Sir Alanna's angry, anxious voice: _Will I get there by candle-light?_

He shook his head to free himself of it. It was nothing more than nonsense, and in any case, he had a siege to break.

"_Own_! Mount up!"

***

_How many men have ye?_

_More than you dare come and see_

_And we guard the approach to the Emerald Sea._

***

"We have an army," Jonathan said softly. "We have a trained, skilled and above all loyal army- which counts for a lot." He paused, and then said even more quietly: "But I wish some of it was not quite so young."

Gareth the Younger followed his gaze outside to where two of the remaining fourth-year pages were sparring. The swords flickered and flashed with more practical, efficient brutality than starched drill patterns, as if the boys had used them in battle and it had knocked the sharp edges off their drilled movements. They were two of eight fourth-years left. Six months ago, there had been twelve.

He winced. Even in the war with Tusaine, they had not been forced to let pages fight. "I know exactly what you mean."

Jonathan stabbed a piece of paper before him. "The butcher's bill," he murmured. "Of all the pages and squires who are now dead without even coming close to the Ordeal. Twenty-six, Gary. _Twenty-six_ of them."

"Twenty-six too many," Gary said soberly.

Jonathan's clenched fist hit the desk, eyes glittering with anger and maybe tears. Quills and paper leapt several inches off the wood. "I will see Ozorne _burn_ for this!"

Gary looked at his friend, and the ditty the Own and the Riders were all singing now drifted into his head, spoken by the merry, lively voices of the teenagers who had died – were still dying – on the battlefield. _How many men have ye? More than you dare come and see..._

***

Later, Gary found himself walking into the depths of the palace, to lose himself so thoroughly that he could forget the bloodshed and pain. He came to a sharp corner, around which was a small sunny courtyard, and halted. Someone, a man, was singing.

"King and Queen of Tortall-land, how many miles to Carthak's sands? Eight hundred and eight of the Emerald Sea..."

He stepped around the corner and recognised Anders of Mindelan, another of those young knights and pages and squires who had been maimed in payment for their courage. The young man was sitting on a bench in the courtyard, holding his sleeping baby daughter, shushing her and rocking her to sleep with limited success.

"Mindelan?"

Anders looked up. "Yes, Sir Gareth?"

"Please..." he hesitated, and then the words spilled from him. "This is going to sound very odd, and it's none of my business what you choose to lull your daughter to sleep with, but please sing your daughter a song that isn't about war."

Anders's wry smile said he understood, and as the baby began to cry again he started in on the Lay of the Lioness. Gary saluted him, and went away.

But still, he could not escape the song. In his mind, it whirled on, its simple, merry tune and defiant words a mockery of the bloodshed it told of, and Gary hated it. More than five years later, when Wyldon of Cavall left the post of training master, a baffled page by the name of Warric would complain that Sir Gareth had given him three bells' work in the armoury for nothing.

He'd only been singing a song.


End file.
